Tryon author Paul Reid completes epic Churchill biography

Sunday

Feb 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Paul Reid was a newspaper feature writer and an award-winning food critic at a Florida newspaper when his ailing friend, William Manchester, asked him to complete the epic trilogy and biography of the late Winston Churchill, the steadfast prime minister who led Great Britain through World War II.

By BETSY TETERFor the Herald-Journal

Paul Reid was a newspaper feature writer and an award-winning food critic at a Florida newspaper when his ailing friend, William Manchester, asked him to complete the epic trilogy and biography of the late Winston Churchill, the steadfast prime minister who led Great Britain through World War II.Reid, who now lives in Tryon, N.C., used his storytelling skills and deep knowledge of the era to complete the project, expanding the final volume of Churchill's biography from 100 pages to more than 1,200 after Manchester's death.Reid will be at the Hub City Bookshop in Spartanburg on Thursday to discuss and sign the new book, “The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965.”Monumental best-sellers, the first two volumes of Manchester's legendary biography of Churchill were among the most celebrated and popular works of biography in recent history. In November, Little, Brown and Company published the third and final volume, which presents a revelatory and unparalleled portrait of a brilliant, flawed and dynamic leader.In 1998, after completing much of the research for the final volume of “The Last Lion,” Manchester suffered two strokes that left him unable to write. In 2003, he asked Reid to complete “Defender of the Realm.” The two had met when Reid had interviewed him for a newspaper story about U.S. Marines.When Manchester died in 2005, Reid received a book advance from the publisher, and the self-described “block-headed Bostonian of Scots-Irish descent” and his wife began looking for a quiet place for him to finish the book.“We moved to Tryon in 2005 after a lengthy search throughout Virginia and the Carolinas,” Reid said. “We had been in South Florida for nine years, and missed the four seasons we had grown up with in New England. We also sought a far less crowded area.“Most important, we wanted to live within range of good neighbors, fine restaurants, the arts and natural beauty. We found all we wanted here in Tryon — with Asheville, Greenville, Spartanburg and all of the beauty of the Carolinas within a day's drive. So, here we are.”He's also a big baseball fan, and he liked the proximity to the Greenville Drive, a Red Sox farm team.Reid said he had been “flabbergasted” when Manchester suggested he finish the project. But he knew he had the story-telling skills from years as a feature writer. Reid had grown up listening to Churchill's speeches on the family's RCA Victrola and had read many books about the legendary prime minister.